英語詩集『RETURN』の発行準備が整いましたので、出版に先駆けここにPreface(序文)を掲載します。本書は日本語詩集『帰還』をもとに、英語の詩として新たに書き直したものです。以下に、本書の序文を掲載します。（髙橋正子）

Preface
RETURN is not a return to the past. It is a return to what cannot be lost.

I have written haiku for sixty years. From the beginning of my practice, I have moved between Japanese and English, between Eastern and Western poetics.

I now serve as editor‑in‑chief of the haiku magazine KAKAN, a name that suggests both the flower itself and a flower wreath. KAKAN succeeded SUIEN (literally “water-smoke”), founded in 1983 by my late husband, Nobuyuki Takahashi (1931–2023). The title refers to the openwork finial of a Buddhist pagoda.

A quiet remark in a letter from Professor Masaki Nishimura (b. 1947), a scholar of fin-de-siècle Vienna, reached me. The letter was written in response to my
essay “Rilke and Haiku and I,” published in KAKAN.　　　Through that stillness, I became aware of the source of my own words.

After receiving his letter, these poems, not haiku,emerged within three weeks: from the journey toGermany with my husband, Nobuyuki Takahashi, a haikupoet, professor of German literature, and scholar of　comparative literature, invited to the Frankfurt HaikuGathering. At this time with our children; from a laterjourney to England shared with my daughter, KumikoTakahashi, a young haiku poet; and from the memoriesthat have accompanied me throughout my life.

While living in Matsuyama, we published the weekly postcard series Haiku Spotlight between 1968 and 1970, featuring haiku in English by English-language haiku poets alongside works by several Japanese haiku poets. Its contributors included William J. Higginson, Eric Amann of Canada, whose magazine Haiku we received at the time, and other poets who would later help shape the development of haiku in North America.

I first wrote these poems in Japanese as KIKAN, born from haiku contemplation. I later rewrote them in English as RETURN. The English versions are not literal translations, but poems recreated for the possibilities of English.

Some readers may feel that this collection traces a path from language to silence. I trust that intuition.

May these poems accompany your quiet moments.
August 9, 2026
Yokohama, Japan